Yoo of course was in the Bush administration’s office of legal counsel who crafted legal opinions around what the Bush administration wanted to do to so-called enemy combatants, a notion they basically invented in order to deny detainees their rights.

But this week, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel rejected Padilla’s case, declaring Yoo immune from such prosecution. Unfortunately, this is the reality of the country we live in: those in elite political and intellectual circles exist in a special bubble where they can commit radical, far-reaching crimes of the highest order and never be subject to prosecution or punishment. The rest of us poor saps are lorded over by this law.